Rail Freight

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Maximize profit with demand-based planning

How do you ensure that your rail freight services are competitive, efficient, and meet all delivery requirements?

As a rail freight operator, you must balance conflicting demands. Your clients expect your services to be reliable, affordable and traceable. Your shareholders expect you to maximize shareholder return. Your employees expect you to accommodate their personal needs and preferences. And safety regulators expect you to comply with labor regulations.

More importantly, these factors affect your ability to win and retain contracts. But what makes rail freight planning so complicated?

Last minute orders, seasonal fluctuations, day-of-operations disruptions are some of the biggest challenges facing operators today. And with demand as volatile as it is in today’s post-crisis world, perhaps it’s time for rail freight operators to look inward, to rein in costs by maximizing train utilization and operational flexibility. Here’s how:

Create demand plans based on forecasts and contracts

Balance short-term rail freight orders with long-term rail track capacity. The Quintiq platform lets you create better long-term demand plans with the support of an extensive library of forecasting algorithms and visibility on your current contracts and order history. The result? Operational plans that can be managed with minimal deviations and optimized utilization.

Compare and select the best scenarios

What if demand increases 15%? What is the operational feasibility of another train movement? What about the financial viability of that customer consignment? No matter your next move, you will be able to predict its consequences and measure its impact on your operations — all in a matter of minutes.

Enhance schedule flexibility and accuracy

Plan last-minute orders with minimal impact to your operational plans. The Quintiq platform tracks information from infrastructure managers, order systems as well as other key sources, and automatically propagates any changes to keep all your schedules up to date and free of conflicts.

To improve cost control and ROI on your assets, you need end-to-end operational visibility. The Quintiq platform lets you integrate planning of key functions to optimize the capacity of all your assets and prevent underutilization.